It occurred to me in 1977 that due to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle it must be impossible for one particular structure to be identical to another, either at the same, or at any other time, and that a perfect duplicate must be an unachievable singularity state. It also occurred to me that there were a number of physical and conceptual singularity states, none of which could ever be achieved, although close approaches could be made thereto. However, when such a close approach was made, then the laws of nature and physics always seems to have to be amended, examples being light speed, absolute zero of temperature, absolute randomness, absolute penetrability of matter, black holes. The same applies to concepts such as infinity, quantum dimensions of time and space, and also to implications of some of the latter such as the law of probability.
On the assumption that a thought must be derived from some form of structure projected from the brain (as per Karl Pribram), probably holographically, via highly structured electrochemical flow between firing synapse and neurons, creating interference patterns, then it would be impossible for one thought structure experienced in the past to be identical (and/or similar) to a duplication or repetition of that structure in the present. However close approaches could certainly be made, and as a singularity state it should be no surprise if familiar effects and the laws of physics would require amendment at such extremes of duplication, which would be increased by complexity of the structures involved, assuming this was an additive effect.
From studies of subjects in hypnotic and other trance states, I made the assumption that individuals can be regressed over many years to re-experience earlier episodes of former mental states as eidetic memory. Initially in 1979 I had to assume that this was via some quantum effect yet to be identified. However, as time has passed, we now know from experimental proof that both quantum connection (correlation) over space can be made instantly (faster than light speed) and also across time as well (Megedish et al 2013 for time displacement). This is via an effect known as quantum entanglement.
The no-cloning theorem of Wootters and Zureck states that it is impossible to create an independent and identical copy of an arbitrary unknown quantum state (Wikipedia), but in cases of perfect recall or eidetic memory, this inevitably involves the creation of duplicate images of past mental states. When this happens, very close approaches to the singularity state of perfect duplication must be involved, and as mentioned above when such a close approach to impossible perfect duplication is made, the laws of nature as they are familiar will start to vary. In this case it results in a resonance effect across time so that an earlier structure (or thought) is duplicated by one later in an individual’s mind as memory. But this leaves the question of how such a later duplication is instigated in the brain, and this involves the conjecture that engrams are physically stored in the brain as a store of molecular devices whose individual function is to prompt or trigger a particular sequence of past experience that is similar to one currently being observed in the present.
When such an earlier experience is projected by resonance, instead of running through the whole length of the original sequence, it is abbreviated as a succession of curtailed episodes of the original long-term memory. These are to be rapidly run through as working memory rather than run through the whole extended original sequence (by which time the advancing tiger might have devoured its intended victim). These collections of curtailed sections of long-term episodes have not been stored physically but each one has to be instigated by a single previous engram stored in the brain. However, the latter would take up much less physical space than storage of the full-length original episode. This would be many times more rapid than a full-length replay, the latter being an external resonance effect which would anyway have to take up large amounts of space in the brain if stored physically. Thus, the nature and description of engrams is crucial but not yet established as to how they operate and their constitution. They have been considered to be similar to RNA molecules with the latter’s high storage capacity, however in February 2021, Molecular biologist Ben Goult published a paper on his Mesh Code theory to possibly provide an engram function.
As to the modus operandi of long-term memory over time, this is directly connected with the singularity state of perfect randomness being unachievable but when close approaches are made, the rules of nature have to be amended. This has been suggested by Bell’s Inequality theorem (and others) and demonstrated in many experiments as to how there is quantum entanglement across time simultaneously. The experimental quantum world relies on the transmission and receiving ends of equipment having to be capable of acting extremely randomly. Whereas I cannot understand the detail of the maths involved (interference of probability amplitudes) forty years ago I deduced my own visual version as follows.
Given two similar brains (identical twins as an extreme example) being apart in distance and/or time, if both are perfectly empty of thought and structure, with synapses and neurons firing absolutely randomly (not an easy state to achieve and maintain: ask any saddhu), then the cognitive sections of the two brains will be almost identical. Then if a particular complex and preferably striking thought structure is inserted into one brain, the other will tend to duplicate that structure, provided there are no other perturbing influences to interfere. This is the assumption in perfect circumstances, due to the minimum energy principle, and also reinforced by Ilya Prigogine’s dissipative structure theorem resulting as internal self-reorganisation. A combination of arguments along these lines had occurred to me well before I had read about quantum entanglement, and from that I then developed a not impossible rationale for thought. For more back up detail on various aspects of the above rationale I have at least fifteen papers on academia.edu, but the most recent and simplest to describe memory’s operation is my most recent paper on consciousness. This describes how if the explanation for memory is combined with that for intuitive ability, an outline description of certain aspects consciousness results. An outline mechanism of intuitive thought is based on the ability to momentarily void mental activity to a random state as described in a separate paper on intuition and more briefly in my paper of consciousness.
In 1982 I read Rupert Sheldrake’s book ‘A New Science of Life’ to be amazed that his thesis of morphic resonance was remarkably similar in conclusion to my duplication theory, albeit via a very different approach and rationale. Since then, I have liaised with him fairly regularly, and thereafter started to take my proposals rather more seriously than I did formerly. I developed a number of possible side effects and implications, which are not covered by Rupert’s hypothesis, some of which I cover very briefly below.
The unintended answer to transmission of EM radiation.
Whilst dealing with memory, I did not expect or intend it would provide an answer for transmission of EM radiation as a corollary effect, about which much is already taken for granted but briefly, here is a resulting alternative as a corollary of structural duplication as a resonance effect. If it is impossible for intervals in space ever to be perfectly duplicated, then it might be consistent to assume that same applies to the other continuum, so that it would be impossible to perfectly duplicate identical intervals in time. It occurred to me that EM radiation is created by the huge numbers of similar events in the passage of identical electrons back and forth along a conductor at identical intervals of time, and also at equal rates of acceleration in the generation of alternating current.
If this duplication of events was identical enough to near singularity state, then there should, ex hypothesi, be some accompanying unanticipated effects as a result. Today we are familiar with EM radiation but 175 years ago we were not. Furthermore, one electron is indecipherable from another, so no problem there. Better still the result of any such repetition of intervals in time can be very readily explained as the transmission of that activity to be duplicated when the outgoing wave at light speed comes across comes free electrons in space, presumably in a similar conductor. This was another resonance effect, but not of intervals in space, but rather in time. I had earlier reduced my definition of Duplication theory down to its simplest possible from as:
“Equal intervals in one location -similar structures- tend to duplicate themselves through all time at that one location”
In the case of the brain and memory, the same location has to be regarded as the same location relative to the scale of its immediate surroundings, bearing in mind that in an expanding universe, there is no such thing as the same location in absolute terms. However, if the words time and location are reversed the following results as a surprisingly direct corollary:
“Equal intervals in time -similar actions- tend to duplicate themselves though all locations at that one time.”
Such a reversible definition in basic terms seemed more than just a fortunate coincidence. It also occurred to me that the universe might be closed and finite as a sphere, which I had read was one of the three possibilities of the FLRW metric, and if I made a further assumption that the singular rim of the spherical universe, the largest imaginable, was expanding out at light speed, then it seems not impossible that its outward circular motion might well tend to be duplicated by every smaller action singularity within as a quantum effect, replacing the concept of photons with a quantum duplicative effect of similar actions (i.e. intervals in time). It much later occurred to me that the observable universe was indeed expanding out at light speed and thus a far more certain circumstance.
Quite early on I had also read about the Absorber theory of Wheeler and Feynman which was written to show EM radiation was non local, symmetrical and relied upon the assumption of an opaque universe. I also had absorbed the Pribram Bohm Holonomic Brain theory, which was very much along the lines of my own proposals, with Bohm‘s thesis that EM radiation being effectively non local. This convinced me there was some validity in my version of EM radiation as a quantum effect. It also led to a spin off paper apparently unconnected with Duplication theory, based on the assumption that the universe was closed and finite, as an expanding sphere, as mentioned above. The latter assumption then indicated a possible rationale for existence of dark matter as a gravitational effect, reinforced by recent astronomical observations confirming that observations of all spiral galaxies indicating dark matter, whereas spherical globular cluster galaxies do not
References
Wootters, W & Zureck. A single quantum cannot be cloned, Nature 1982
Megedish, E. Entanglement swapping between photons that have never coexisted, Phys rev 2013
Pribram, K. Languages of the Brain. G. Globus et al: eds. P56 Plenum, New York 1971
Bell, J. On the EPR Paradox, Physics, 1964
Sheldrake, R. A New science of Life, Blond & Briggs, 1981
Bohm, D. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. Routledge Kegan Paul, 1980
Wheeler, J & Feynman, R. Interaction with the Absorber, Mod Physics review 1945.
Goult, B. Mechanical basis of memory: Meshcode theory, Frontiers in Molecular Science, Feb 2021
Prigogine, I. Time, Structure and Fluctuations, Nobel lecture, 1977
Bell, J. S. On the Einstein Rosen Podolsky Paradox, Physics 1 (3) 195-200 1964
Nicholas Greaves, May 2021
E mail: ngg@champerty.net
Copy extracts from letters written to the author on early drafts of Duplication Theory:
“Thank you for your letter of January 31st and the essay. I found it immensely stimulating and particularly liked your resonance hypothesis. But I am of course no physicist and not qualified to judge. I have a hunch though that David Bohm might react positively, if you send him a copy.”
Arthur Koestler 20/02/1979
With regard to the basic duplication theory, I think what you are saying is so, but that a more sophisticated form of it might be in Leibniz’s monadology or Gabor’s holograms………..I do think you have written a most interesting piece and found your writing style to be superb. There are many quotations that you have gathered together that would be most useful to me in my teaching. In short you have done an excellent piece of scholarship, and with some revision and bringing it up to date, it might well be worth publishing.”
Professor Karl Pribram, neuroscientist, of Stanford 23/07/79
“Your manuscript is fascinating and enormous in scope. While I have not read is in its entirely, perhaps I have understood enough of it to make the following comments. You are aware, I am sure of its discursive character and its lack of mathematical precision, which will make it difficult to have it published. Nevertheless, the range it covers recommends that it be presented to public view……….”
Professor Henry Margenau of Yale, physics department 18/03/1983
“Many thanks for your letter and your writings on Duplication Theory. In essence, it is indeed similar tithe theory IO am putting forward, and you explore many of the same areas. It seems we must have been writing at much the same time (1978-1979 when I was drafting my book in India). So, ex hypothesi, we may well have had some influence on each other ……….. I too am fascinated by inertia and suggest (0n page 119 note 4) an idea similar to the one in the main text of your theory. This seems different from your later speculation along Machean lines which I find less convincing…….”
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake 18/03/83
I have followed Nick Greaves’ work with interest for a number of years and thought I understood it. However, as I read this enjoyable book I gained new insights. It’s an amazing achievement for a non-scientist to bite off such a large chunk of science, and then clothe it in a story that conveys it without pain, rather with joy. I congratulate the author on a very successful achievement, one that has not been attempted (or accomplished) before………………. I am a physicist, and there are elements of the book I could quibble with. However, I am also a reader of science fiction, and I know that fiction anticipates reality in surprising ways. Therefore, I recommend any scientifically-minded reader to keep an open mind: it’s not necessary to agree with every detail to be impressed with and inspired by Greaves’ overall vision. I have read books by physicists attempting to treat such big subjects, and I can assert that Greaves outperforms them all in the scope and plausibility of his ideas. I highly recommend “Mind out of Time,” not only as an enjoyable read, but as a thought-provoking vision of mankind’s future.
Dr. Arthur Chester, President (retired) HRL Laboratories LLC, Malibu: Amazon Review